A writer I
know recently asked me what I’d been working on lately. “Publicity, as always,”
I replied, “although more consulting than campaigns these days.”

“Oh right, authors and our ‘personas,’” he scoffed.

Having spoken to students in graduate creative writing and
journalism programs at two different universities that week, I took it in
stride. I always do. I have to. Rarely does a writer come along who is thrilled
by the prospect of marketing himself. But after we chatted for a while my
friend conceded that, yes, there is only so much room in each issue of the New York Times Book Review,
which I admitted I seldom read, and that, ideally, his would be among the books
chosen for review.

I always ask authors who request my services to begin by
considering how it is that their readers know what they know. Did they discover
your latest title in a review? Wander into a reading or other event? Or, as is
usually the case now, see a mention on some form of social media? When I work
on a publicity campaign, I view my objective as twofold: to persuade someone to
buy the author’s book—as opposed to all the other books competing for
attention—and, more essentially, to speed up that sale and persuade her
to do it now. In
order to achieve this, an author needs that ever-elusive buzz. But what exactly
is buzz, where does it come from, and how do you get it?

When I began my career in
public relations a decade ago, doing media outreach for campaigns and
hot-button social issues, my mornings were devoted to reading the Wall Street Journal, the New York Times, and the Financial Times, as well as
a few other newspapers. I’d clip out relevant articles, paste them onto single
sheets, and distribute copies to executives. What is striking to me now is not
how much paper was involved—and it was a lot—but how finite the
world of information seemed. The work was systematic and technical: Faxed press
releases were followed up with calls to reporters and editors in the hope that
they might attend the scheduled press conference, and press kits were assembled
to distribute there. The thing I remember most is that each project had a
clearly identifiable endpoint, which was arrived at when a feature article was
published or a segment aired on a national news program.

Five years later I
switched my focus to cultural projects, primarily literary publicity, and
assiduously and methodically read four hundred blogs via an RSS reader, which collected new and updated items and
displayed them continuously. Partly, it was personal interest that led me to focus
my attention on online media. It was also a matter of necessity. Publishing is
a relatively small industry, and working outside traditional houses, I lacked
the carefully cultivated relationships that in-house publicists maintained. I
also saw no need to duplicate their efforts.

I speak regularly to
audiences—from academic groups to editorial and publicity staffers at
publishing houses—but I don’t spend much time sketching out the
particulars of any one type of social media. They change too quickly, and I
eschew the idea that anyone should be everywhere all the time. I encourage
writers to consider what they are already doing, and to focus their efforts
there. Is YouTube useful for writers? Sure, if you like making videos. I
wouldn’t encourage anyone to spend money on a book trailer unless they have a
concept that already sounds viral in the telling. Facebook and Twitter are
useful because that’s where so many of the bits of information that color our
lives can be found, and that’s where everyone is looking at the moment. Twitter
is where I find what editors and booksellers are talking about when they talk
about books. I log in to Facebook to keep in touch with authors and see who’s
hot right now. A few years ago it was MySpace, a few years hence it will be
something else. The specific platforms are always evolving, but the overall
trends are fairly consistent.

There’s a video of me
speaking at Penguin Books in London a few years ago, and it always makes me
wistful to get a note about it from someone who’s just come across it, because
there’s a perfectly outdated MySpace anecdote in the clip that makes no sense
now. It lacks context, and is thus wholly irrelevant. At the time, the anecdote
was highly instructive, and the author I was talking about has gone on to be
something of a social-media sensation in other realms. This experience reminds
me of the fluidity of change, and the necessity of not getting too caught up in
the imagined structures of permanence. The microblogging platform Tumblr is
gaining in popularity among my friends and colleagues (I have a well-tended
personal blog on another platform and have not opened a Tumblr account, having
reached my limit; a sort of fascination fatigue sets in due to long-term
exposure to new ways of learning everyone’s opinions on, well, everything) and
the location-based social-networking site Foursquare gets a lot of traffic (but
I don’t use it, because I find the idea of self-reported surveillance a little
too Orwellian for my taste). Technology is a set of habits, and they can be
good or bad for you.

The world of social media deeply resembles the world it
mirrors—and in some ways has supplanted: Fear, fame, anxiety,
connectivity, conversation, blossoming friendships, connections being made, they all unfold with the clamor of a good party. The
task of finding readers and an audience is made much easier by joining the
conversation that you feel you belong to, whether it’s via media that you
maintain (your blog, your Facebook page, your Twitter handle), community sites
you check daily, or blogs that you read and comment on when you have something
important to add.

I had a conversation this
afternoon with an author who is, in the best sense of the word, emerging. His
third novel will be published in the fall, and he’s gotten the coveted reviews.
Still, his frustration was evident as he asked me, quite frankly, how he’s
supposed to know what’s working if he doesn’t see the results in his sales. I
explained my theory of positive momentum. It’s no longer the case that one
thing will necessarily make your career. If anything, that exposure could be a
breakthrough that heralds success because it leads to the next shot at the
limelight. Rather than angling for a specific kind of coverage in a specific
kind of outlet, I encourage authors to see things from the perspective of
sustained momentum, and to do things that will continually advance their
interests, and, ultimately, their careers. For this particular writer, that
means focusing on the niche audiences that fall outside his publisher’s view. I
suggested he pose a particular question—concerning reading series that
take place in art galleries—on Facebook. This is how buzz starts. It is a
matter of starting to speak, igniting that desire for interaction, commentary,
and conveyance of ideas that powers social media.

If you’re unsure where to begin, start by
doing one thing really well. We’ve transformed our culture from the model of
passively receiving information, with a few voices speaking authoritatively to
everybody else, into a multitude of diverse perspectives and commentaries on a
much wider and richer spectrum of topics. If there are qualms, they are usually
about quality or quantity. Most of the time, though, it seems people give up
too quickly because they don’t know what to do or where to look. Specific
online communities are an excellent starting point, allowing you to gingerly
experiment with the level of interaction and exposure you feel comfortable with
before venturing into what may feel like the more public sphere. Figment.com is
for teen fiction; Shewrites.com connects women writers (and the Op-Ed Project
offers real-world workshops to give them access to a larger stage); Fictionaut.com,
a site for which I serve on the board of advisers, aims to recreate the MFA-style peer-driven workshop critique. Certain
multivoice blogs also function as communities, giving readers opportunities to
contribute. The Rumpus, HTMLGIANT, and the Nervous Breakdown are a few examples.

Mass customization and an
expectation of personalization at every level are the hallmarks of the
information age, and there’s no reason why your publicity strategy shouldn’t be
tailored precisely to your needs as well. You don’t need to have a presence on
all platforms, but you should be aware of them. Mediabistro’s blog Galleycat is
a hip, tech-savvy eye on publishing, with a focus as much on authors as the
industry. For the truly hard core, Mashable.com offers the latest social-media
news and trends. One day, some corporations will have figured out how to
effectively monetize the digital economy, and we’ll talk about all the things
that used to be free, scarcely believing it ourselves. Take advantage of this
moment. These are your resources, and yours alone to invest in and manage.

Many authors wonder about
the best way to represent themselves online. Should you have a clear
distinction between your private self and your public identity? Ideally, you will
one day have many more fans than you can maintain a one-to-one relationship
with, so I encourage authors to develop a channel of communication that serves
and grows their existing audience with a mix of relevant news and just enough
personal disclosures to keep it human and enjoyable as a medium for social
exchange. You choose where to draw the line. While I often post where I’m
having lunch and with whom as a way of giving attention to places and people
who are deserving of it, I would rarely offer more than a vague sketch of
someone with a role in my personal life. The content that you choose to post
via whatever social-media platform you choose should comprise whatever you are
comfortable with, and the disclosures that feel natural and pleasurable to you.

A consistent theme I hear
from authors grappling with this new landscape is their fear of overpromoting
their work. But very few people, in my opinion, correctly promote themselves
enough. Perhaps it’s my profession that colors my perspective, or my having
received one too many e-mails on the day of the reading or book launch. The
correct timeline for promoting an event, by the way, is to send out details one
month in advance, with a reminder two weeks later, then a few days prior to the
event. Linking to a Facebook invitation in subsequent status updates does the
trick. Consistency is key.

Often the word brand
is seen (by literary authors, anyway) as a tremendous turnoff. I would argue
that in our capitalist culture we’re all raised on brands. If a certain soda
maker halted production today, and you came across a red billboard with a white
wave fifty years from now, you’d know what it used to be selling. A brand is a
clear, consistent message, streamlined and with a minimum of clutter. To
achieve this on a Web site, your information needs to remain current and laid
out in a way that allows people to find the information they’re looking for immediately,
without any distracting bells and whistles. As far as social media
goes—whether it’s on Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, Foursquare, or other
platforms—you need to share information of merit efficiently and in an
open manner. For instance, consider the time of your post. Weekday mornings
have the most eyes.

A few years ago I decided
print was dead and the future was alive and well in cell phone novels. So I
went to Japan. It was true; everyone was reading them on the subway, and there
was plenty of flashy technology to occupy my mind while I was there. But what
resonated most was that I was in the midst of a culture far older than my own.
And the message was simple: Books change. Stories are forever.

WHAT KIND OF SOCIAL-MEDIA USER ARE YOU?I’m a talker. Sign up for Facebook and Twitter. If you already use these platforms
socially, begin to share news about your writing life. Figure out how best to
tell your story in an engaging but professional way. (And unless you have 5,001
friend requests, don’t set up a fan page for yourself. Yet.)

I like visuals. Tumblr is for you. Most posts are simply images. So far, Tumblr users
skew young, so it’s an especially helpful platform for those who write for
teens. Tumblr is so easy to use that many “blog-to-book” deals begin here.

Just books, please. Join Goodreads, Shelfari, and LibraryThing.

I like to listen. Broadcastr is all audio—stories contributed by users from around
the world that you can search by subject and location. After listening, leave
comments, rate, and share with your writer friends.

I want to hone my craft. Try Fictionaut. You can post your own writing,
invite critiques, join and start communities, and follow writers and readers
whose tastes you share.

I’m focused on career. She Writes has Webinars on every aspect of the
publishing business (that anyone can download) and a stable of real-life
experts on tap.

Always looking for a party. The Rumpus, the Nervous Breakdown, and HTMLGIANT
feature rowdy conversations and ample opportunity to be entertained, and to
join the fun.

Coming soon: Look for our new column on how authors can leverage
social media to connect with readers.